Apparently everyone knows that global warming only makes climate more extreme. A hot, dry summer has triggered another flood of such claims. And, while many interests are at work, one of the players that benefits the most from this story are the media: the notion of “extreme” climate simply makes for more compelling news.
Consider Paul Krugman writing breathlessly in the New York Times about the “rising incidence of extreme events,” He claims that global warming caused the current drought in America’s Midwest, and that supposedly record-high corn prices could cause a global food crisis.
But the United Nations climate panel’s latest assessment tells us precisely the opposite. For “North America there is medium confidence that there has an overall slight tendency toward less dryness” Moreover, there is no way that Krugman could have identified this drought as being caused by global warming without a time machine; Climate models estimate that such detection will be possible by 2048, at the earliest.
And, fortunately, this year’s drought appears unlikely to cause a food crisis, as global rice and wheat supplies retain plentiful. Moreover, Krugman overlooks inflation: Prices have increased six-fold since 1969. so, while com futures (期货) did set a record of about S8 per bushel (葡式耳)in late July, the inflation-adjusted price of corn was higher throughout most of the 1970s, reaching 516 in1974.
Finally, Krugman conveniently forgets that concerns about global warming are the main reason that corn prices have skyrocketed since 2005. Nowadays 40 percent of corn grown in the United States is used to produce ethanol (乙醇), which does absolutely nothing for the climate, but certainly distorts the price of corn—at the expense of many of the world’s poorest people.
Bill Mickbben similarly worries in The Guardian about the Midwest drought and corn prices. He confidently tells us that raging wildfires from New Mexico and Colorado to Siberia are “exactly” what the early stages of global warming look like.
In fact, the latest overview of global wildfire suggests that fire intensity has declined over the past 70 years and is now close to its preindustrial level.
When well-meaning campaigners want us to pay attention to global warming, they often end up pitching beyond the facts. And, while this may seem justified by a noble goal, such “policy by people” tactics rarely work, and often backfire.
Remember how, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Al Gore claimed that we were in store for ever more destructive hurricanes? Since then, hurricane incidence has dropped off the charts. Exaggerated claims merely fuel public distrust and disengagement.
That is unfortunate, because global warming is a real problem, and we do need to address it.
__________.
You are an executive council member of our organization, so _______________________________（你说的话有份量）.
Media Selection for Advertisement
After determining the target audience for a product or service, advertising agencies must select the appropriate media for the advertisement. We discuss here the major types of media used in advertising. We focus our attention on seven types of advertising: television, newspapers, radio, magazines, out-of-home. Internet, and direct mail.
Television
Television is an attractive medium for advertising because it delivers mass audiences to advertisers. When you consider that nearly three out of four Americans have seen the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? you can understand the power of television to communicate with a large audience. When advertisers create a brand, for example, they want to impress consumers with the brand and its image. Television provides an ideal vehicle for this type of communication. But television is an expensive medium, and not all advertisers can afford to use it.
Television's influence on advertising is fourfold. First, narrowcasting means that television channels are seen by an increasingly narrow segment of the audience. The Golf Channel, for instance, is watched by people who play golf. Home and Garden Television is seen by those interested in household improvement projects. Thus, audiences are smaller and more homogeneous(具有共同特点的) than they have been in the past. Second, there is an increase in the number of television channels available to viewers, and thus, advertisers. This has also resulted in an increase in the sheer number of advertisements to which audiences are exposed. Third, digital recording devices allow audience members more control over which commercials they watch. Fourth, control over programming is being passed from the networks to local cable operators and satellite programmers.
Newspapers
After television, the medium attracting the next largest annual ad revenue is newspapers. The New York Times, which reaches a national audience, accounts for $1 billion in ad revenue annually, ii m increased its national circulation (发行量) by 40% and is now available for home delivery in ion ciues. Locally, newspapers are the largest advertising medium.
Newspapers are a less expensive advertising medium than television and provide a way for advertisers to communicate a longer. more detailed message to their audience than they can through 48 hours,meaning newspapers are also a quick way of getting the massage out.Newspapers are ofen the most important form of news for a local community, and they develop a high degree of loyalty from local reader.
Radio
Advertising on radio continues to grow Radio is often used in conjunction with outdoor bill-boards (广告牌) and ihe Internet to reach even more customers than television. Advertisers are likely to use radio because it is a less expensive medium than television, which means advertisers can afford to repeal their ads often. Internet companies are also turning 10 radio advertising. Radio provides a way for advertisers to communicate with audience members at all times of the day.Consumers listen to radio on their way to school or work, at work, on the way home, and in the evening hours.
Two major changes—satellite and Internet radio—will force radio advertisers to adapt their methods. Both of these radio forms allow listeners to tune in stations that are more distant than the local stations they could receive in the past. As a result, radio will increasingly attract target audiences who live many miles apart.
Magazines
Newsweeklies, women’s titles, and business magazines have all seen increases in advertising because they attract the high-end market, magazines are popular with advertisers because of the narrow market that they deliver. A broadcast medium such as network television attracts all types of audience members, but magazine audiences are more homogeneous, if you read sports illustrated, for example, you have much in common with the magazine’s other readers. Advertisers see magazines as an efficient way of reaching target audience members.
Advertiser using the print media-magazines and newspapers-will need to adapt to two main changes. First, the internet will bring larger audiences to local newspapers, these second. Advertisers will have to understand how to use an increasing number of magazines for their target audiences. Although some magazines will maintain national audiences, a large number of magazines will entertain narrower audiences.
Out-of-home advertising
Out-of-home advertising. Also called place-based advertising, has become an increasingly effective way of reaching consumers, who are more active than ever before. Many consumers today do not sit at home and watch television. Using billboards, newsstands, and bus shelters for advertising is an effective way of reaching these on-the-go consumers. More consumers travel longer distances to and from work, which also makes out-of-home advertising effective, technology has changed the nature of the billboard business, making it a more effective medium than in the past.
Using digital printing, billboard companies can print a billboard in 2 hours, compared with 6 days previously. This allows advertisers more variety in the types of messages they create because they.
Can change their messages more quickly.
Internet
As consumers become more comfortable with online shopping, advertisers will seek to reach this market As consumers get more of their news and information from the Internet, the ability of television and radio to get the word out to consumers will decrease. The challenge to Internet advertisers Is to create ads that audience members remember.
Internet advertising will play a more prominent role in organizations' advertising in the near ftuture. Internet audiences tend to be quite homogeneous, but small. Advertisers will have to adjust their methods to reach these audiences and will have to adapt their persuasive strategies to the online medium as well.
Direct mail
A final advertising medium is direct mail, which uses mailings to consumers to communicate a client's message Direct mail includes newsletters. postcards and special promotions. Direct mail is an effective way to build relationships with consumers.For many businesses.direct mail is the most effective from of advertising.
A wise man once said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. So, as a police officer, I have some urgent things to say to good people.
Day after day my men and I struggle to hold back a tidal wave of crime. Something has gone terribly wrong with our once proud American way of life. It has happened in the area of values. A key ingredient is disappearing, and I think I know what it is: accountability.
Accountability isn’t hard to define. It means that every person is responsible for his or her actions and liable for their consequences.
Of the many values that hold civilization together—honesty, kindness, and so on — accountability may be the most important of all. Without it, there can be no respect, no trust, no law—and , ultimately , no society.
My job as a police officer is to impose accountability on people who refuse, or have never learned, to impose it on themselves. But as every policeman knows, external controls on people’s behavior are far less effective than internal restraints such as guilt, shame and embarrassment.
Fortunately there are still communities—smaller towns, usually—where schools maintain discipline and where parents hold up standards that proclaim; “In this family certain things are not tolerated—they simply are not done! ”
Yet more and more, especially in our larger cities and suburbs, these inner restraints are loosening. Your typical robber has none. He considers your property his property; he takes what he wants, including your life if you enrage him.
The main cause of this break-down is a radical shift in attitudes. Thirty years ago, if a crime was committed, society was considered the victim. Now, in a shocking reversal, it’s the criminal who is considered victimized: by his underprivileged upbringing, by the school that didn’t teach him to read, by the church that failed to reach him with moral guidance, by the parents who didn’t provide a stable home.
I don’t believe it. Many others in equally disadvantaged circumstances choose not to engage in criminal activities. If we free the criminal, even partly, from accountability, we become a society of endless excuses where no one accepts responsibility for anything.
We in America desperately need more people who believe that the person who commits a crime is the one responsible for it.
The fact is that the energy crisis, which has suddenly been officially announced, has been with us for a long time now, and will be with us for an even longer time. Whether Arab oil flows freely or not, it is clear to everyone that world industry cannot be allowed to depend on so fragile a base. (1) The supply of oil can be shut off unexpectedly at any time, and in any case, the oil wells will all run dry in thirty years or so at the present rate of use.
(2) New sources of energy must be found, and this will take time, but it is not likely to result in any situation that will ever restore that sense of cheap and plentiful energy we have had in the times past. For an indefinite period from here on, mankind is going to advance cautiously, and consider itself lucky that it can advance at all.
To make the situation worse, there is as yet no sign that any slowing of the world’s Population is in sight. Although the birthrate has dropped in some nations, including the United States, the population of the world seems sure to pass six billion and perhaps even seven billion as the twenty—first century opens.
(3) The food supply will not increase nearly enough to match this, which means that we are heading into a crisis in the matter of producing and marketing food.
Taking all this into account, what might we reasonably estimate supermarkets to be like in the year 2001?
To begin with, the world food supply is going to become steadily tighter over the next thirty years even here in the United States. By 2001, the population of the United States will be at least two hundred fifty million and possibly two hundred seventy million, and the nation will find it difficult to expand food production to fill the additional mouths. (4) This will be particularly true since energy pinch will make it difficult to continue agriculture in the high-energy American fashion that makes it possible to combine few farmers with high yields.
It seems almost certain that by 2001 the United States will no longer be a great food exporting nation and that, if necessity forces exports, it will be at the price of belt-tight ening at home.
In fact, as food items will tend to decline in quality and decrease in variety, there is very likely to be increasing use of flavouring additives. (5) Until such time as mankind has the sense to lower its population to the point where the planet can provide a comfortable support for all, people will have to accept more “unnatural food.”